28-Justinian Sayin’

03/02/14 • 0 min

1 Listener

This week’s episode of Communion Sanctorum is titled – “Justinian Sayin’”During the 5^th C, while the Western Roman Empire was falling to the Goths, the Eastern Empire centered at Constantinople looked like it would carry on for centuries. Though it identified itself as Roman, historians refer to the Eastern region as the Byzantine Empire & Era. It gets that title from Byzantium, the city’s name before Constantine made it his new capital.During the 5^th C, the entire empire, both East & West went into decline. But in the 6^th Century, the Emperor Justinian I lead a major revival of Roman civilization. Reigning for nearly 40 years, Justinian not only brought about a re-flowering of culture in the East, he attempted to reassert control over those lands in the West that had fallen to barbarian control.A diverse picture of Justinian the Great has emerged. For years the standard way to see him was as an intelligent, ambitious, energetic, gregarious leader plagued by an unhealthy dose of vanity. Dare I say it? Why not: He wanted to make Rome Great Again. While that’s been the traditional way of understanding Justinian, more recently, that image has been edited slightly by giving his wife and queen Theodora, a more prominent role in fueling his ambition. Whatever else we might say about this husband and wife team, they were certainly devout in their faith.Justinian's reign was bolstered by the careers of several capable generals who were able to translate his desire to retake the West into reality. The most famous of these generals was Belisarius, a military genius on par with Hannibal, Caesar, & Alexander. During Justinian's reign, portions of Italy, North Africa & Spain were reconquered & put under Byzantine rule.The Western emperors in Rome's long history tended to be more austere in the demonstrations of their authority by keeping their wardrobe simple & the customs related to their rule modest, as befitted the idea of the Augustus as Princeps = meaning 1^st Citizen. Eastern emperors went the other way & eschewed humility in favor of an Oriental, or what we might call “Persian” model of majesty. It began with Constantine who broke with the long-held western tradition of Imperial modesty & arrayed himself as a glorious Eastern Monarch. Following Constantine, Eastern emperors wore elaborate robes, crowns, & festooned their courts with ostentatious symbols of wealth & power. Encouraged by Theodora, Justinian advanced this movement and made his court a grand showcase. When people appeared before the Emperor, they had to prostrate themselves, as though bowing before a god. The pomp and ceremony of Justinian’s court were quickly duplicated by the church at Constantinople because of the close tie between church & state in the East.It was this ambition for glory that moved Justinian to embark on a massive building campaign. He commissioned the construction of entire towns, roads, bridges, baths, palaces, & a host of churches & monasteries. His enduring legacy was the Church of the Holy Wisdom, or Cathedral of St. Sophia, the main church of Constantinople. The Hagia Sofia was the epitome of a new style of architecture centered on the dome, the largest to be built to that time. Visitors to the church would stand for hours in awe staring up at the dome, incredulous that such a span could be built by man. Though the rich interior façade of the church has been gutted by years of conflict, the basic structure stands to this day as one of Istanbul’s premier attractions.Justinian was no mean theologian in his own right. As Emperor he wanted to unite the Church under one creed and worked hard to resolve the major dispute of the day; the divide between the Orthodox faith as expressed in the Council of Chalcedon & the Monophysites.By way of review; the Monophysites followed the teachings of Cyril of Alexandria who'd contended with Nestorius over the nature of Christ. Nestorius emphasized the human nature of Jesus, while Cyril emphasized Jesus’ deity. The followers of both took their doctrines too far so that the Nestorians who went East into Persia tended to diminish the deity of Christ, while the Cyrillians who went south ...

Previous Episode

27-Orthodoxy, with an Eastern Flavor

This Episode of CS is titled, “Orthodoxy, with an Eastern Flavor.”We need to begin this episode by defining the term “Orthodoxy.”It comes from Greek. Orthos means “straight” & idiomatically means that which is right or true. Doxa is from the verb dokein = to think; doxa is one’s opinion or belief.As it’s most often used, orthodoxy means adherence to accepted norms. In reference to Christianity, it means conforming to the creeds of the early Church; those statements of faith issued by the church councils we’ve looked at in recent podcasts and we have a series on in Season 2.In opposition to orthodoxy is what’s called heterodoxy; other-teaching. Heterodoxy deviates from the Faith defined by the Creeds. Specific instances of heterodoxy, that is - deviant doctrines are called heresy; with those who hold them known as heretics. When heresy causes a group of people to remove themselves from the Communion of Saints so they can form their owndistinct community, it’s called a Schism.But there’s another, very different way the word Orthodox is used in Christianity. It’s the name of one of the 4 great branches of the Church; Roman Catholic, Protestant, & Eastern Orthodox. The fourth is that branch of the Faith we’ve been looking at for the last couple episodes – The Nestorian Church, AKA The Church of the East.In the West, we’re familiar with Roman Catholicism & Protestantism. We’re less aware of Eastern Orthodoxy and most people haven’t even heard of the Nestorian Church. Ignorance of Eastern Orthodoxy is tragic considering the Byzantine Empire which was home to the Orthodox Church continued to embody the values & traditions of the Roman Empire until the mid-15^th C, a full millennium after the Fall of Rome in AD 476.It’ll be many episodes of CS before we get to the year 1054 when the Great Schism took place between the Eastern & Western churches. But I think it helpful to understand how Eastern Orthodoxy differs from Roman Catholicism so we can stay a little closer to the narrative timeline of how the Church developed in upcoming episodes.One of the ways we can better understand the Eastern Orthodox Church is to quickly summarize the history of Roman Catholicism in Europe during the Middle Ages as a contrast.In the West, the Church, led by the Pope with cardinals & bishops, oversaw the spiritual& religious aspects of European culture. The affiliation between church & state that began with Constantine the Great & continued for the next century & a half was at best a tense arrangement. Sometimes the Pope & Emperor were close; at other times they were at odds & competed for power. Overall, it was an uneasy marriage of the secular & religious. During the Middle Ages, the Church exerted tremendous influence in the secular sphere, & civil rulers either sought to ally themselves with the church, or to break the Church’s grip on power. Realizing how firm that grip was, some civil rulers even sought to infiltrate the ranks of the church to install their own bishops & popes. The Church played the same game & kept spies in many of Europe’s courts. These agents reported to Rome & sought to influence political decisions.The situation was dramatically different in the East where the church & state worked in harmony. Though foreign to the Western Mind, & especially the Modern Western Mind which considers a great barrier between Church & State, in the ancient Byzantine Empire, Church & State were partners in governance. They weren’t equivalent, but they worked together to shape policies & provide leadership that allowed the Eastern Empire to not only

Next Episode

29-Syncretism

This episode of CS is titled, “Syncretism.”Recent episodes have chronicled the growing rift between the Eastern church centered at Constantinople and the Western-based in Rome. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451 Eastern bishops elevated the Bishop of Constantinople to near equal status and authority with the Bishop of Rome, giving the Church 2 heads. It was increasingly obvious politics played a greater role in church affairs than the quest for doctrinal purity or faithfulness to the Gospel–mandate. East & West were moving in opposite directions.Since Constantinople as the “New Rome” was the political center of the empire the Eastern church grew increasingly linked to Imperial power. In the year 380, on Feb. 27^th in his Edict of Thessalonica, Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity the official state religion and banned paganism. Since the Church had no authority or power to enforce compliance to the Faith or to punish unconverted pagans, Imperial power was lent to enforce the Emperor’s will.This forced-conversion of vast multitudes of pagans saw an influx of new church members whose commitment to the Gospel was doubtful. Priests were now in the uncomfortable position of having to lead people they knew were at best, only nominally-committed.Since the Christianity of the 4^th C had moved away from its roots in Judaism with its knee-jerk hostility to idolatry, a growing number of priests, who’d themselves been idol-worshiping pagans before conversion, though it might facilitate the assimilation of new converts to the Faith if concessions were made to the old forms. Why not take age-old traditions and direct them toward new ends? The veneration of angels, saints, relics, pictures, and statues was an attempt to bring ex-pagans into a more familiar form of worship and accommodate their religious sensitivities. Of this process, Philip Schaff writes, “The Christianizing of the State amounted in great measure to a paganizing and secularizing of the church. The world overcame the Church, as much as the Church overcame the world, and the temporal gain of Christianity was in many respects canceled by its spiritual loss. The mass of the Roman Empire was baptized only with water, not with the Spirit and fire of the Gospel, and it smuggled heathen manors and practices into the sanctuary under a new name.” [1]It’s a risky venture attributing motive to those removed from us by such a long distance in time, but I suspect for many church leaders the assimilation of pagan forms into the liturgy of the Church was seen as a necessary concession to the large numbers of barbarians now required to convert. The hope was that as these new, nominal church members learned the Gospel, the truth would set them free from their superstitions and the Church could return to a pure and orthodox liturgy. No doubt the reasoning went something like à God had become man to reach sinful men. Why could not the Church become, to use Paul’s words "all things to all people in order to win the more?"The problem is, if that was the rationalization for adopting pagan forms of worship, it didn't work. The Church didn't temporarily materialize its liturgy to accommodate nominal members; it institutionalized those pagan forms, making them into new traditions, some of which continue to this day.Another unfortunate development during this time was the distance that developed between the clergy and laity. For the first 3 Cs, lead pastors or bishops as they were called, were honored as God-ordained leaders by their congregations, but they weren't regarded as special. The elevation of bishops and priests into a special class developed slowly during the 4^th & 5^th Cs. By the dawn of the 6^th they were regarded as being unique; part of a distinct category. The reason for this elevation differed in the East and West. In the East, Church & State were joined in a religio-political union. Because of the close of affinity between priest and politician, clergy adopted the lavish trappings Eastern officials affected. Constantine began this trend when he moved his capital to Constantinople. He adorned himself as a traditional opulent Eastern monarch rather than an austere Western E...